Weekly Newsletters

Newsletter 13/2018

The next
two days are very special to the Swazi nation and all who cherish the idea that
countries should have the right to determine their own future and destiny.

Firstly, we
celebrate with the nation the birthday of His Majesty the King – his 50th.
In any country with a monarchy, the recognition of the birthday of the king is
an important event to celebrate in the life of the nation because the king
embodies the cultural and historical identity of the nation. It is important to
mark the occasion, so we all say: Sikufisela
Lunwele Loludze (we wish you a long life).

BAYETHE, WENA WAPHAKATHI.

Secondly we
celebrate the 50th anniversary of the independence of Swaziland.
It is a special occasion indeed for any nation to mark its birth as an
independent state, taking its rightful place in the community of nations, free
to determine its own destiny and future in its own way. We wish the Swazi
nation well on this momentous occasion and celebrate with all our Swazi
students and family members this special day.

Congratulations and well done on a very busy
and productive term

I would
like to congratulate every member of the community: students, staff, parents,
alumni, donors and friends of Waterford for a successful end of term. We have
seen a number of activities which have been key highlights for term one, including
hosting the UWC international board, hosting the GC meeting two weeks ago, hosting
teacher visitors: St Marks in the US and the International School of
Luxembourg, hosting the Attenborough’s, the Shakespeare Festival, many tours to
South Africa and Mozambique, our entrance testing in March and Asia week. Thank
you for making term one a memorable term. Academic reports will be sent out by
email today.

Thank you

This week I
received a nice message from Michael and Karen Attenborough who were special
guests at the school for the Shakespeare Festival:

“Thank you so much for inviting us to revisit
your completely remarkable school. It was something of a pilgrimage for us and
thus a real privilege to have been welcomed so open heartedly into your
community.

To hear you say at the end of our stay that we
had made a real impact and successfully introduced so many students (and the 16
local artists at the Swazi Theatre Club) to the joys of Shakespeare meant a
great deal to us.

We have made so many great friends, not least
Ben and Sindhu. His achievement was extraordinary; the sheer range of
imaginative events, not to mention the huge number of students we managed to
reach and, I hope, inspire.

We also owe you heartfelt thanks for our
delightful stay at the Foresters. What a truly beautiful place. We were
wonderfully looked after. That was very kind of you.

We have spoken often about how unique WK is
and Karen and I shall do all we can to spread the word far and wide, now and in
future. As I tried to articulate in my speech at UWC Day, I believe it embodies
the essence of what education should be about – the realization of the full
potential of every child.

Please send our love and thanks to Elinor and
all those who made us feel truly at home.”

Farewell

Today we
bid a sad farewell to Dr. Jones who has been with us for almost three years. As
I reported before, his wife got a “not-to-be-missed” opportunity in Canada at
the end of last year, and so Dr. Jones returned to Waterford in January to
serve out his notice. He now leaves us to re-join the family. We thank him for
his contribution to both the Music department and Emhlabeni residence. For many
of our students at Emhlabeni his home became a home away from home. We wish him
all of the best in his future endeavors.

Congratulations

Ms. Retha
Cook who has been appointed as deputy head of residence at Emhlabeni, taking
over from Dr. Jones from the start of term 2.

Some term two highlights

We will
start term two on Tuesday the 22nd of May, but with
a Wednesday timetable, starting with assembly and tutor group
sessions.

The term starts
with an external non-school event – Bushfire. I encourage parents to find out
about this event when their children are asking permission to attend. At the
school we are especially careful about exeats for borders on that weekend and
ask parents to please cooperate with us by providing as much communication as
possible about the event.

In mid-June
we will also have Africa Week which will be graced by Mrs. Graca Machel and
other dignitaries.

National
Arts Festival

Next
term we will be making another trip to the National Arts Festival at
Grahamstown, South Africa. For Theatre and Music students in the first year of
IB, this is a curriculum trip which enriches their experience immeasurably. As
we have done for the last few years, we will also be sharing a Waterford
Production on the Fringe Festival. This year, it is Pippa Davies’ colorful and
funny “Scramble for Africa”. This trip covers the mid-term break of Term 2,
leaving campus on Tuesday 26th June, to return on Tuesday 3rd July.
All parents of students involved will be contacted by email.

Theatre
Piece

Theatre
students in IB1 have been commissioned to create a short theatre piece for the
'Kidzone' at the Bushfire Festival this year. Their piece celebrates the theme
"Off Grid" in a contemporary fairy-tale for little children. They
will be involved directly as performers on
the Saturday and Sunday of the first weekend of Term 2.

IBT Feedback

At Waterford our lower phase curriculum has
been developed by teachers and co-ordinators over a number of years to best
prepare our students for life-long study and future external examinations such
as IGCSE and the IBDP. We do review and adjust our lower school curriculum
regularly to make sure that the academic rigour of this programme is sound and
that our pedagogy ensures that our students are developing intellectually to
their full potential.

During 2017 we decided (in collaboration with
the HODs and the Lower School Phase Co-ordinator) to measure the rigour of our
curriculum against international standards. As a result, we conducted the
International Benchmark Tests (IBTs) with our Form 3 students. (Parents were
informed of this in a letter dated 23 October 2017). The IBTs were developed by the Australian
Council for Educational Research (ACER), and are designed to assess the generic
skills that underpin the teaching of English and Mathematics. Test questions
are based on reasoning and thinking skills in each subject area rather than
knowledge of particular curriculum content. These tests are used extensively
throughout the world to evaluate the merits of curricula.

We have now received the results and we are
pleased to inform you that our IBT results are very good indeed. In both
English and Mathematics (the only subjects tested) our average scores are
higher than both the Southern African and International averages. The feedback
indicates that our students are scoring in the higher assessment bands
indicating that:

On the whole, our
students perform within the same range which speaks to the success of our
entrance testing in ensuring that students who are best able to manage the
rigour of strong academic programme are being accepted to WK in Forms 1 –
3.

Our junior phase
curriculum is rigorous and of a high academic standard.

The delivery of
our curriculum is successful and effective

Message from the School Nurse

Parents are
requested to use the holidays as an opportunity to do general medical check –
ups on their children (including in particular dental and eye checks). It has
been observed that some students sometimes come back from holidays with
ailments that could have been attended to during the holidays.

Parents are
also requested to encourage their children to lodge any large quantities of
medication / drugs (over the counter and chronic medication) to the School Nurse
for safe keeping in the school clinic. There are risks associated with students
being in possession of large quantities of medication which we wish to avoid.
Please contact the school nurse if you have any queries in this regard.

The Deputy Principal Academic, Joanne de
Koning will be on extended leave for the first three weeks of the new term.
During this time her classes will be covered by Mr Tom Churchyard – a former
Waterford teacher and friend of the school. Her administrative responsibilities
will be covered by the Phase Co-ordinators. Parents and guardians are welcome
to refer any concerns or queries to the Phase Coordinators.

At the end of every term I publish a report on
the school, which is substantially the same as my report to the termly meeting
of the Governing Council. This report will be posted on our website early next
week (due to the public holidays we will not be able to get it on to the
website this week).

2018
Phoenix Fund

I thank the
parents, staff and students who have generously made donations to the 2018
Phoenix Fund. As I mentioned before, the Phoenix Fund is a campaign where all
members of the Waterford Kamhlaba UWCSA community – from Governing Council
members, staff and students to current and past parents – are invited to
contribute towards the improvement of the infrastructure at the school, by
realizing smaller, on campus projects, which are not covered by
the school’s annual budget. As I reported last week, this year we are
focusing on the realization of 4 projects, namely: 4 new drinking fountains,
replacing our plastic cafeteria cups with metal ones, buying new cutlery and
heaters for the classrooms. We have a new target of E100 000 that we aim
to raise for this year’s campaign. Once again, I request that you support the
campaign. A gift of E 500 from each and every parent will go a
long way towards realizing our goal. Of course, we welcome any donation you can
make, depending on what your situation allows. Parents can donate either in
cash through giving to their children or by using any of the methods mentioned
on our website.

On May 22,
we will be visited by Pomona, Swarthmore and Williams universities. On the 24th
we will have Amherst, Bates and Bowdoin. Parents are welcome to participate.

Entrance Testing for Admission in 2019

The focus
now shifts to regional entrance testing and the dates and venues are listed
below. These dates and times are also available on our website. www.waterford.sz Please register siblings and spread the word to families and friends.

For any
information on entrance testing and/or admissions, please contact the Director
of Admissions at careers@waterford.sz

Reminder: Important
dates:

●Thursday 19th April – WK bus departs for JHB
at 06:15

●Saturday 19th May and 9th June – Regional
Entrance Testing

●Tuesday 22nd May – School opens for
the second term (with a Wednesday timetable)

Any Questions?

If you have
any questions and feedback, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line at principal@waterford.szIf the question is of broad interest I will publish the question (with
the permission of the writer and without the name) and my reply in the
newsletter. I will send the next newsletter on the 25th of May.

Final message

In today’s
assembly I gave students my usual end of term message: rest, read, re-create,
and reflect. I also encouraged students to catch up any work and complete any projects
they need to.